The Butcher's Hook by Janet Ellis

Author:Janet Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2016-01-27T19:25:10+00:00

Chapter 15

Fub was like a leech at me yesterday afternoon. In my small mirror, I can see bright purple spots where he sucked. Even if he were to bite me hard enough to let blood, I could not be cured of him.

He told me to wear stout shoes today, but the little boots my uncle gave me to ride in are too small now – I squeezed my left foot into one, but it chafed and pinched even before I took a step. Our route to the fair would leave me walking sore and ragged. My mother has pattens, but I don’t know where she keeps them and I daren’t risk discovery by searching through her things. My soft new shoes will have to do. If my feet were as hard as my heart is to my family, I would not struggle with the ground beneath them at all.

He waits where he said he would. He wears a cord jacket, and when he turns there is a waistcoat underneath. I am suddenly nervous of him, as though his being dressed so smartly undoes our closeness a little. He pulls his clothes about, as unused to their constriction as I am to their appearance. When he sees me, we smile at each other like new acquaintances. He looks to my feet.

‘You are wearing dancing shoes, Anne.’ He is immediately disapproving, his awkwardness forgotten. He may as well be in his apron again. ‘We don’t dance to the fair, do we, we walk.’

It is too late now, isn’t it? The entertainments won’t wait while I change my shoes.

‘Go easy, then,’ I say.

He does not reply, but shrugs .

‘Then do not consider me at all. It is my feet I walk on, not yours, Fub. You will not hear me complain if you do not mind on my behalf where we step.’

I look carefully at him. His hair still curls at the back but the front stands up in spikes. The change is unnerving. His hand goes to where my eyes stare. ‘I chopped at it.’ He looks embarrassed. ‘The knives were just back from the barracks and I tested one. I thought I needed tidying.’

I don’t like to see his newly revealed forehead. I am angry and discomfited that he did not stay as he was. It is like a scratch on polished glass.

In the hush that falls between us we hear a sound, a soft

whispered roar sharpened by cries and shouts: it is a great mass of people. It sounds like an army on the move, but instead they are all revellers bent on their task together. They carry a banner of noise, brandished like regiment colours, and it is coloured with drums, pipes, the pierce of flutes and high songs. None is in tune together but it’s a great, raucous hymn to holiday.

‘Look!’ Fub points upwards; the sky is clear and blue. ‘For us!’ He smiles at me and I catch his humour; he is full of pleasure and good intentions.

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